This week MN Original profiles the St. Paul spoken word team, two-time champions of the National Poetry Slam. Spoken word artist Guante talks about the thrill of “killing a poem” in front of an audience.

There’s no rush like that – I’ve played sports for a long time and there’s no rush like killing a poem… A poetry slam is both an art and a sport. It’s a little bit of poetry, a little bit of stand-up comedy, a little bit of rhetoric, a little bit of hip-hop possibly, all these different vocal forms, a lot of theater, too.

One of the most beautiful things about spoken word is it allows you to tell the story of either yourself or people you know when those stories don’t always get told. A fundamental tenet of slam poetry is that everybody has a story.

As part of the show Guante performs an excerpt from his piece “Cartpusher” – here’s the entire piece:

This week’s episode also features a captivating profile of book plate artist Serik Kulmeshkenov.